A theory: Although this song appeared on 1997’s Half Dead and Dynamite, the entire story the lyrics tell is a metaphor for how John McCain felt a full eleven years later when large swaths of the mainstream press abandoned him and gave favorable coverage to Barack Obama. Meaning that Craig Finn — frontman for Lifter Puller and later, of course, The Hold Steady — is not only a crackerjack poet, but also a time traveler.